Sir Francis Walsingham Read Online Free PDF Page A

have everything their own way. Quite rightly in such a prominent seat of learning teachers and students were free to debate controversial theological issues. The reactionary faction had formidable champions, foremost among whom was Stephen Gardiner, Master of Trinity Hall and Bishop of Winchester. As well as demanding outward conformity to the reformed religion, the authorities were intent on winning minds. In May and June 1549Nicholas Ridley arrived to preside over a series of disputations on the doctrine of the mass. The university church was packed to hear some of the best brains of the day locked in argument, citing Scripture and the Fathers in support of their competing opinions. It would be surprising if Walsingham had missed such an opportunity. Ridley, perhaps inevitably, proclaimed that the evangelical disputants had won the debate. Gardiner was not persuaded by this intellectual exercise but he had little opportunity to protest: within days he was a prisoner in the Tower of London.
    At Michaelmas (29 September) 1550 Francis Walsingham left Cambridge without taking a degree, as was quite common among the student sons of noble and gentry families who were not bent on an academic career. It was his intention to continue his education at the inns of court and there can be little doubt that his ambition was directed towards a career at the royal court. Sir John Fortescue, the great fifteenth-century legist eulogized the kind of rounded education a young man received at these ‘finishing schools’:
    [T]here is in these greater inns, yea and in the lesser too, beside the study of the laws, as it were a university or school of all commendable qualities requisite for noblemen. There they learn to sing, and to exercise themselves in all kind of harmony. There also they practise dancing, and other noblemen’s pastimes, as they use to do which are brought up in the king’s house. On the work days the most part of them apply themselves to the study of the law. And on the holy days to the study of the holy scripture: and out of the time of divine service to the reading of chronicles. For there indeed are virtues studied, and all vices exiled. So that for the endowment of virtue, and abandoning of vice knights and barons, with other states and noblemen of the realm place their children in those inns, though they desire not to have them learned in the laws, nor to live by the practice thereof. 4
    Mastering the varied accomplishments fostered at Gray’s Inn, young Francis could be assured of a secure place in the establishment. With a legal training, friends and relatives in high places and an impeccable evangelical faith he could be reasonably confident ofpromotion within the Edwardian regime. To add to his CV he decided to spend some months in foreign travel. Knowledge of European customs and languages would equip him well for diplomatic service. But there were other attractions on the continent for this eager young Protestant.
    We do not know his itinerary during this ‘gap year’ but it seems more than likely that he was drawn to one or more of the leading Reformation centres such as Geneva, Basel or Zurich. Geneva was the strongest magnet for evangelicals at this time for it was here that John Calvin reigned supreme. Walsingham will have known of his teaching from
Institution of the Christian Religion,
a monumental, systematic manual of reformed doctrine which went through several editions and eventually extended to four books and eighty chapters. But Calvin was not content with theory. He wanted his city to be a shining example to the world of what a Christian commonwealth could be and organized its civic life, under the joint control of magistrates and ministers, in a way that would encourage the citizens to personal and corporate holiness. Ardent evangelicals flocked to Geneva from all over Europe to hear Calvin preach and learn how a truly godly political system could be established. Life in the Protestant cantons